SANTA FE, N.M., Nov. 6 (UPI) -- Confessed child killer Terry Clark was put to death Tuesday night in a "respectful and dignified manner," according to witnesses who attended New Mexico's first execution in almost 42 years.
Witness Sylvia Hewitt, a reporter for the Artesia Daily Press, said Clark spent his last minutes with his eyes trained on his "spiritual adviser," a clergyman who wished to remain anonymous, mumbled the cryptic words "15 minutes," and waited as his breathing became labored. Finally, she said, he gurgled, closed his eyes and stopped breathing.
Clark was pronounced dead at 7:10 p.m. MST after receiving the lethal injection, officials said.
Clark pleaded guilty to the July 1986 kidnapping, rape and murder of 9-year-old Dena Lynn Gore, whom he abducted while she was riding her brother's bicycle to a convenience store near her family home in Artesia.
He tied her up and took her to a remote ranch where he raped her and shot her in the head three times after she told him, "you're going to pay for this."
Clark was sentenced to death in May 1987, a sentence that was eventually overturned by the New Mexico Supreme Court, and then again in March 1996 he was sentenced again to death. For the last two years, Clark has said that he wanted to die.
Tim LeMaster, warden of the Penitentiary of New Mexico, said Clark was led into the death house on the prison grounds at about 6:35 p.m. MST Tuesday and was strapped to a gurney. He said Clark was "compliant" and "prepared" and said a short prayer.
The 24 people who witnessed the execution included 21-year-old Donita Welch of Roswell, who was raped and left for dead by Clark when she was 6-years-old in another case.
"It was an act of God that I got away," Welch said. "I am a born fighter."
Patty March of New Mexico Survivors of Homicide, who also witnessed the execution, said that watching the execution was like watching Clark "going in for an operation and being put to sleep."
"Ninety-nine percent of the people in the world have a much tougher death," she said.
Attorney General Patricia Madrid said she believed that Clark's cryptic last words meant that he believed that within 15 minutes of that moment that the would be in heaven.
